So, What Is an Artist?
{Salvador Dali}
By Mushk Hoor.
People with an extraordinary talent.
That is what we hear or think when someone says the word Artist. But is that the real definition of an Artist? I do not think so.
It has been more than four months since I shifted to a new city to pursue my dream. And almost daily I meet people who call themselves artists. But I could barely see a real artist anywhere. The people I meet are actors, performers, writers, directors.
Everyone here is very proud to be attached or related to art. But reality tells a different story to me. If they really have any connection to art, they must at least respect it. Well, this debate on who really respects art and who just wants fame and wealth can go on for hours.
I always thought that an artist is someone who is a bit crazy and is not embarrassed to show it. He loves the craziness and enjoys it. I know, it is heard very commonly that he is a crazy artist but what is actually that craziness? I gave that idea some thought.
I looked around to find a real artist with heart and mind full of craziness, and luckily I did find few. Spending some time with them, I saw the shine of that craziness. I saw them enjoying it, and they did not give a tiny rat’s ass about what the world would think about it.
They did what their hearts told them to, they spoke the true words without any fear, and they wrote the magic words touching the closed minds of people dependent on daily boring useless routines.
Many times I saw them doing things that, in normal society, are considered absurd, out of line and silly. An artist is a pure soul, like a newborn child, in spite of the world calling him a mad man.
He walks around like this world was created for him to explore, he talks in such a way that each word he speaks can be elaborated and made out into a book because there is always a hidden story behind it. And no one can reach the magic, or even imagine the Universe growing, inside that brain.
Many times I have seen artists becoming famous, but they hate fame and they hide themselves where no one knows them; they start dwelling among people who treat them like nothing.
I asked someone who was famous, and deeply irritated by it, “Why do you hate fame?”
He answered, “… because I can’t understand why I am getting all this fame. I am only showing what the truth is or what I think about the truth.
Fame? For only showing what you think? Do you give fame to the bird because it can fly? I don’t see anything to be proud of; I actually get irritated by people nagging me all the damn time.”
I did not say anything about it. Truly speaking, I did not understand that answer.
When normal people see artists getting the fame, they get bewildered at the thought of a mad person becoming famous. And then they do a very funny thing, they try to imitate the artist; they think if he can do it, then anyone can do it.
But these normal people never understand that an Artist is a child of art — he is born to serve it, and he has spent time in the warm womb of it. He has talked to Mother Art in the dark loneliness; he respects her with true heart and is faithful to her.
Wealth, fame, stardom — these things disturb an artist’s mind, and only his own self and time spent with his Mother Art can calm him down.
You can call it craziness, but the artist calls it a gift which, in my opinion, not everyone can possess.
*****
Mushk Hoor is a scriptwriter from Pakistan. She loves to spend time with books. She enjoys writing short stories and prose poetry. Writing, for her, is a way to say something which she cannot say out loud.
{The Gift of Crazy}
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